www.akbizmag.com May 2015| Alaska Business Monthly13seem like a very far distance, movingthousands of pounds of pregnant fe-males, yearlings, and calves through theair requires a lot a planning, among otherthings. “It’s not like reintroducing a speciesin the rest of the country, where you mightput an otter in a dog crate in the back of apickup truck and drive it to its new home,”says Harms. “That works great when youhave roads and big enough trucks, but wedon’t have this in Alaska. We needed anairplane—a big airplane. You can’t put athousand pound animal in a Super Cub.”“An animal that big in a small, con-fined space is not going to be happy,” addsMichaelis. “You need to build a containerthat’s small enough so that they don’t havethe opportunity to move around, anddark enough to keep them calm. And ithas to be able to be trucked into Anchor-age, where it will get loaded onto a plane.”Richard Faulkner, president of STEEL-FAB, was approached for help. “When Ifirst got the call, I wasn’t sure of the scopeof the project, and I opened my mouthand said ‘yes,’” he laughs. “It’s like whena neighbor asks you to watch her cat, andit turns out that she has forty of them.I’m glad I didn’t know what I was gettinginto, and I’m glad that I’m not the one in-serting the bison into the box.”STEELFAB worked with ADF&G tomodify six twenty-foot Conex boxes,which were donated by Alaska MarineLines and Container Specialties of Alas-ka, to contain the bison on their flight.

In addition to creating stalls inside theboxes, putting non-skid coating on thefloors, building plywood gates, and put-ting the boxes on skids, workers alsomade sure that the bison all had properventilation and were not able to see eachother while onboard. “The cows had to beseparated because they’re not real socia-ble and don’t get along in close quarters,”says Faulkner. “Once we figured out whatwe were doing and got one done, it didn’ttake that long to do the others. But be-cause the containers weren’t brand new,the dimensions weren’t all the same, soeach one had to be custom fit.”STEELFAB donated all of its labor andmaterials and also encouraged its sup-pliers to help in the effort. “There werequite a few people who donated to thecause,” says Faulkner, adding that theypainted the boxes STEELFAB blue tomake them look pretty. “I feel that it’s aworthwhile activity to bring bison backinto the Interior,” he says. “It’s a joint ef-fort—ours might be a more visible partof it, but it’s definitely a group effort.”The Lynden family of companies playeda huge part in this effort, donating ser-vices to help support this move as well asdiscounted flights. “Alaska Marine Linesdonated four intermodal containers, andAlaska West Express provided the equip-ment for loading the bison in Portage,along with a truck, trailer, and a dedicateddriver,” says Jim Davis, vice president ofmarketing and sales for Lynden Air Cargo.“We have always been a niche operatorand have gotten some strange requestsover the years, but this move definitelymade our top ten list,” he continues,adding that the trip required a Herculesaircraft to do the job due to the size ofthe animals and the remote destination.On Sunday, March 22, the first two in-termodal containers containing fifteenyearlings each took off for Shageluk; thiswas followed by seven adults in each boxlater in the day. Two flights a day on Mon-day and Tuesday got the rest of the bisonto their new home, much to the relief of allinvolved. “I can tell you that we’re breath-ing much easier now,” says Davis. “Wehad no doubt in our ability to safely movethe boxes from Portage to Shageluk, butwhen you’re dealing with live animals,you never know how they’re going to doduring transport. You’re always looking

PhotocourtesyofCarlileCarlile Driver Doyle Bartell and a load of hay at the Alaska Wildlife Conserva-tion Center. Bartell is Carlile’s representative on the wood bison comeback team.

STEELFAB retrofitted six twenty-foot Conex
boxes to hold the wood bison during
the flights to Shageluk.